Percussion in Classical Music
Percussion is arguably the most versatile of any instrument family in that it can be used in practically every genre or style of music. In an orchestral setting, percussionists are generally called on to provide different textures in the ensemble. Some percussion instruments are more commonly used than others. Timpani, for example, has been seen in Western classical music since the 17th century and became a standard orchestral instrument long before many other percussion instruments. Snare drum, bass drum, and crash cymbals were adopted soon thereafter and quickly became associated with the orchestra as well.
Read more about this topic: Orchestral Percussion
Famous quotes containing the words percussion, classical and/or music:
“We got our new rifled muskets this morning. They are mostly old muskets, many of them used, altered from flint-lock to percussion ... but the power of the gun was fully as great as represented. The ball at one-fourth mile passed through the largest rails; at one-half mile almost the same.... I think it an excellent arm.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (18221893)
“Et in Arcadia ego.
[I too am in Arcadia.]”
—Anonymous, Anonymous.
Tomb inscription, appearing in classical paintings by Guercino and Poussin, among others. The words probably mean that even the most ideal earthly lives are mortal. Arcadia, a mountainous region in the central Peloponnese, Greece, was the rustic abode of Pan, depicted in literature and art as a land of innocence and ease, and was the title of Sir Philip Sidneys pastoral romance (1590)
“I cannot say what poetry is; I know that our sufferings and our concentrated joy, our states of plunging far and dark and turning to come back to the worldso that the moment of intense turning seems still and universalall are here, in a music like the music of our time, like the hero and like the anonymous forgotten; and there is an exchange here in which our lives are met, and created.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (19131980)